This small manuscript, dating to the late-15th century, in Renaissance script, contains poems from the Rime (Rhymes) by the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321). These are so-called minor works that are distinguished from Dante’s Vita nuova (The new life), his book of sonnets recounting his early love for Beatrice, and his all-encompassing allegorical masterpiece, La divina commedia (The divine comedy). On the front cover is a 15th-century note, now almost totally faded, which states: "Di Cosimo de' Medici e degli Amici" (Belonging to Cosimo de’ Medici and ...

This manuscript Hebrew Bible with full vocalization, accentuation, and Masorah annotation was created in Spain in around 1300. The Bible is illustrated and decorated in color, silver, and gold. The books of the Bible are arranged in the conventional order later adopted in Hebrew printed editions, with the exception that Ecclesiastes precedes Lamentations. Written on parchment in Sephardi square script, the manuscript has three columns per page, with 35 lines per column. The Masorah Magna notes are written in micrography. Masorah refers to the collection of critical notes, compiled in ...

This manuscript, possibly a remnant of a complete Hebrew Bible, includes books from the Nevi’im (Prophets) as well as the books of Chronicles and Psalms from the Ketuvim (Hagiographa or writings) section of the Bible. (The tripartite division of the Hebrew Bible includes the Torah, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa.) It includes full vocalization and accentuation, as well as some Masorah Parva notes. The latter are very brief notes on the side margins or between columns, which are part of the Masorah, the collection of critical notes, compiled in ...

This finely illuminated and iconographically rich book of hours was made in England at the end of the 13th century. The manuscript is incomplete and mis-bound. The original sequence of the parts of the manuscript cannot be reconstructed with certainty. The Abbreviated Hours were followed by the Hours of the Holy Spirit, the Seven Penitential Psalms, the litany and collects, the Fifteen Gradual Psalms, the Office of the Dead, and the Hours of Jesus Crucified. Whether the Prayers to the Crucified Christ, which were followed by the lections in the ...

The Cervera Bible is among the oldest and most significant Sephardi Bibles to survive the destruction of most of the Jewish communities in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon beginning in 1391 and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1498. An extremely rare example of the Iberian Hebrew paleography of its time, this manuscript on parchment consists of 451 folios in two columns, each with 31 lines. Profusely illuminated in gold and color with Mozarabic and Jewish motifs, it includes the books of ...

Ramon Llull (circa 1232−1316), a key figure in medieval literature, was a multifaceted personality who pursued literature, philosophy, theology, and the natural sciences with passion and skill. An extraordinarily prolific writer, he is considered to be the author of 267 works, written mainly in Latin and Catalan. Tradition attributed to him an even larger number of titles. Concerned about the dissemination of his work, Llull wanted to assure that a large number of his texts were issued in Catalan as well in Latin in order to reach to a ...

Manuals or notarial protocols are books used by Catalan notaries since the 13th century to register in accurate chronological order all notarized acts. Some notaries opened special books in which they collected one type of document. Presented here, for example, is a book maintained by a notary in Cardona, in south-central Catalonia, used exclusively for recording legal acts relating to the Jewish inhabitants of the village. On its pages, written in Latin, are found extracts concerning the acknowledgement of debts, procurements, contracts, donations, and payments. Analysis of the notarial contracts ...

The author of this work, Lin Xiyi (1193−1271), courtesy name Suweng, style name Yanzhai, was a native of Fuqing, Fujian. Lin received his jin shi degree in 1235, became a vice director at the Bureau of Evaluation, and later was an official at the Central Drafting Office serving the Grand Secretariat. Kao gong ji (The artificers’ record), as seen today, was included in the ancient ritual text Zhou li (The rites of Zhou) to substitute a missing part. Zhou li, originally called Zhou guan (The offices of Zhou), consisted ...

This document is the oldest existing manuscript relating to swordsmiths in Japan. The text contains a description of the year 1316, which indicates that the original was written in the late Kamakura period. However, the postscript gives the date as December 21, 1423, which means this is a copy made in the Muromachi period. The document gives a genealogy of swordsmiths from the most ancient of times to the late Kamakura period, and describes the swordsmiths of the day. The section of the manuscript entitled Kokon shokoku kaji no mei ...

This early 14th-century parchment manuscript, known as the Bethune Breviary, is a prayer book used for daily monastic prayer. Normally, breviaries (so-called from their nature as condensations of texts from many separate books) contain the calendar, prayers, hymns, and liturgical readings for the Divine Office, but the Bethune Breviary also includes the canon for the mass (as in a missal or mass book). The codex contains the services for the first half of the ecclesiastical year, extending from the beginning of Advent to Easter Sunday, and from the feast of ...